Students in Fort Lewis College Assistant Professor of Art and Design Del Zartner’s Elements of Web Design course gained rare, hands-on industry experience at the end of Fall Semester 2025, taking their final projects from concept to fully live, public-facing websites.
The opportunity was made possible through donated web hosting from Kinsta, a global web hosting company, addressing a common barrier in web design education: the cost of hosting live sites. Without access to live platforms, many students graduate without experiencing the real-world expectations of launching and maintaining a functioning website.
Zartner connected with Roger Williams, partnership and community coordinator for Kinsta, at a local WordPress development meetup in Durango. Williams helped secure donated hosting for the class, allowing students to publish their work on live sites. Fort Lewis College IT staff member Curt Poff also supported the project by creating unique web addresses for each site within the fortlewis.edu domain.
As a result, each student launched a customized website featuring an original design. Many of the sites serve as professional portfolio pages that students can use as they prepare for internships and post-graduation careers.
Zartner and Williams hope to continue and expand the partnership, broadening student access to career-ready learning through WordPress and live web development. Kinsta highlighted the collaboration in a recently published article.